Where an Angel Dares to Tread
by Gaia caecilia
Summary: Many times the High King of the Eldar woke to a comforting presence and eventually finds the person who protects his dreams. Oneshot. Complete.


Here is one of my short stories which has been in the process of being written for years that i have finally got done. There will be no more done on this story but i hope you like it.

Disclaimer. I do not own anything by Tolkien, though i wish i did. This story is solely for reader entertainment.

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Ingwë woke to the feel of a gentle hand brushing his hair, something that baffled him. He would have reacted more had he been more awake but in his half asleep state he just enjoyed the caress. After a while he opened his half lidded eyes which had slid shut from pleasure at the hand on his hair before he had even truly registered the presence of a person stroking his hair.

To his surprise when he opened his eyes he couldn't see anyone and so he tried rolling over, assuming the person was there instead. The sensation of a hand on his head went as he rolled and when he looked around there was no-one there either. Sitting up quickly he looked around the deserted room. How the hell had the person gone so quickly? It was as much a mystery as how they had got into the room and why they just sat there and petted the elf's hair.

Scrambling out of bed far less gracefully than usual, the highest ranking elf in existence rushed to dress before leaving for Manwë's palace to talk with Vala. His powerful friend would be, out of all the people he knew, the most likely to be able to explain this strange phenomena.

XXX

Manwë had been as baffled by the account of the night time visitor as Ingwë had been by the visit.

The blond king watched him as the vala leant back in his chair, a frown of consideration on his face.

"My friend, I cannot think of what this might be, I have no knowledge of any being that could either move so fast nor become invisible to that extent. I am afraid I cannot help you with this..." He trailed off, clearly irritated by his lack of comprehension of what it could have been.

Ingwë left, beginning to wonder whether he had imagined it.

XXX

Several more times over the centuries did a similar event happen, and after a while Ingwë began studying the events. He noticed that whenever the strange person came to visit, it had been when he was under some kind of stress. It was like the presence came to him to sooth his soul in difficult times.

When he presented his observations to Manwë, the vala had looked through them curiously, as fascinated by the strange visits as his elfin friend. After several minutes looking through the papers Ingwë had put together, the Vala spoke.

"It is almost like you have some sort of guardian angel" Manwë pales and trailed off at the last two words, his eyes widening. Ingwë looked at his lord, eyebrow raised. After several moments of shocked silence, Manwë spoke again. "I do know of a race with the abilities that you describe, but what any of them would be doing in this world is beyond me..."

Ingwë looked at Manwë, utterly confused as the vala seemed to be rather distracted.

"My Lord?" he asked after a few moments. Manwë shook his head, as if clearing away his confusion, before responding.

"The angels are the celestial race of another world, my friend. Each of many worlds have a similar set up to this world in terms of ainur though there are variations between groups. One of the most benevolent groups are the angels, rules by archangels. My counterpart is called Michael, a powerful and skilled warrior. He is the one who trained us to fight actually, his world is the oldest of them all and he is the eldest and most powerful of all those who major ainur." Ingwë stared at Manwë, shocked. "What I don't know is why one would be interest in you, why they would visit you as they have."

XXX

After the arrival of Earendil, a young peredhil ,to Valinor the strange visits became almost nightly until the night before the army of the elves left Valinor to liberate Arda left the undying lands. That night he not only felt the brushing of the angel's hand but soft singing touched his ears.

When he awoke he found lying on the bedside table two gifts. One was a simple necklace that was easy to place under his armour, the other a slightly strange looking long bladed knife. The handle was covered in a blue tinted white leather of a quality beyond any he had seen before. Embedded in the leather were both lapis lazuli and turquoise stones to make a hand grip. The pommel was a large sapphire apparently held on by ornate silver thread twisted into a sort of filigree.

The sheath was equally beautiful, made with the same blue-white leather and embroidered with silver thread in the same patterns as the filigree over the pommel. Ingwë drew the blade and tested the edge, wincing at the sharpness of the blade. Decorative, it may have been, but it was definitely a weapon designed to be used. Curiously, Ingwë noted the blade also had a slight blue glow to it.

He then spotted a note folded neatly on the table. Eyes ablaze with interest, he picked up the piece of paper. To his disappointment, he could not read a word written on the parchment. It was not a script he recognised at all. All the same, he made sure to carry it with him, just in case.

XXX

The vanya was able to get to Manwë before the send off to show his gifts to the lord Vala, as well as the note. When Manwë saw the three items, his eyebrows shot into his hairline.

"Well, that answers who your night time visitor is." He commented in a stunned voice.

"My lord?" The vala smiled at Ingwë.

"The note simply states to wear these gifts at all times while you are at war for they will protect you and to call if you ever need help. There is no name, not that I need one, I can sense her aura over all three items."

"Her my lord?" The vala's smiled widened.

"Yes, Her. To be precise, the adopted daughter of Michael. I say adopted mostly for lack of a better description of their relationship. Selene is rather unusual. All I really know about the girl is that she has all the powers of the angels and more, including several unique ones Michael has given her, can change her appearance at will, at least so I have been told, and (unlike most angels) is definitely female."

"Definitely female?" Ingwë asked, rather perplexed.

"Angels are technically androgynous, they do not have gender. It makes it rather difficult referring to them as few mortal languages have a personal pronoun for gender neutral people. Selene is definitely not. I wonder what her interest in you is, unfortunately I know too little of Michael's darling daughter to be able to guess. I would do as she says with those gifts though." Ingwë nodded, sliding the necklace round his neck and attaching the blade to a weapons belt.

XXX

Several weeks later Ingwë was woken and called to that they had been attacked. Without thought he yanked on his armour, not realising he had left behind his gifts.

The previous weeks of battle had been fast and bloody, his army proceeding across Arda at a fast pace as they cleared Morgoth's filth from the land. During those fights he had been uncommonly lucky. No weapon had even neared him, he had yet to even get bruised. Enemies fell before him in their hordes and he was beginning to get a reputation for being invincible in battle. He had been amused by the whispers that his friendship with Manwë himself protected him from harm. The blond Vanya decided not to mention that it was not quite the right person though the right direction that they were looking in.

Like usual, he cut through the ranks of enemies like a knife through butter, the glow of the two trees surrounding him as he fought. Eventually he was able to stop his fighting, vaguely registering that it had seemed harder than usual to fight. Suddenly his attention was caught by one of the other elves grasping his lower arm.

"Ingwë! You need to see a healer! I will take you to your tent." He vaguely recognised the voice as Finarfin's and looked down at his chest and the free arm, both of which were bleeding profusely. He blinked several times as he stared at his injuries and was dragged back to his tent by his fellow king.

Finarfin forced him to sit down on his cot and methodically removed the armour from his body. Just as he was getting to cleaning the steadily blackening injuries, the sound of the tent flap opening distracted him. The Noldo turned, mouth opening to address whoever it was but as he saw whoever had entered, the word dried up and he just stared, open jawed. Curiously, Ingwë turned that way as well.

Walking towards him was the most beautiful female he had ever seen. Iridescently shimmering hair, delicate chiselled features and a fine figure, barely covered by the dress the girl was wearing. There was an air of youth about her as well as a blue glow that perfectly matched the one round the blade of his knife.

She sat down beside him and touched her hand to the wound on his chest, one that, judging by the colour, was probably deadly. The now black injury glowed blue and then disappeared. Her hand moved to the other injury and healed that as well before she took the necklace off the bedside table and threaded it round his neck.

"Silly elf, do not take that off again. It guarantees your invulnerability. The knife helps you fight." She rose and turned to leave but he had taken her hand.

"Who are you, lady?" She laughed a bell like laugh and kissed his hair softly in an oddly familiar way.

"Don't you remember Manwë telling you silly? I am Selene." With that she was gone, leaving two staring elves behind her.

XXX

After that Ingwë never removed the necklace, and true to Selene's word, he was invulnerable, not receiving the slightest injury.

Eönwë watched him quietly but often, a curious look in his eyes. Eventually the maia approached him, shortly before the last battle came up.

"Your injuries should have been fatal King Ingwë but you were totally recovered within hours. You also emanate a powerful aura not your own..." The intimidating being trailed off questioningly, as if to ask for an explanation.

"The Lady Selene visited me and healed my injuries. Shortly before we left she gave me two items of power which help to protect me. That night I forgot to bring them, hence I was injured as I have not been at any other time." The maia stared at him.

"Selene? You truly have friends in high and mysterious places, my lord." He commented.

XXX

Ingwë looked round for where he could help, distracting himself from the carnage of the last battle, when a soft hand took his. He turned to see Selene standing there in her near diaphanous dress and smiling serenely. She tugged on his hand.

"Come with me, you need to sleep. I will make sure you sleep well." She said, smiling sweetly at him.

Ingwë didn't remember much after that bar the bit where he was brought back to the hideous reality of the aftermath of the battle much refreshed and his soul far lighter for the apparent rest she had given him. He just wished she had let him remember where she had taken him.

Until they got back across the blue mountains to the remains of Beleriand, Selene would periodically take him away to that unremembered place to rest and he began to miss her while she was not there during the day.

Soon he was on the ship back across the sea, the first one both because of his station and to allow him to prepare the return of the army, plus some. Finarfin was with him, leaving Cirdan, or Nowë as Ingwë had known him, and Ereinion Gilgalad to arrange things their side of the sea. Selene did not come to him while on the ship at all, much to his disappointment. Despite limited memory of his meetings with her, he could feel himself growing fond and thus missing her presence. Absently he wondered just how bigger chunk of his memory was gone that his sub-conscience remembered her fondly while his mind did not. To say he was glad to see Manwë waiting for his ship when they arrived was a relief, since the vala was the only person he could think of that would be able to help him sort out his memory issues.

Once his lord had greeted him, Ingwë whispered that he needed to talk about Selene. Manwë simply stated that he would come to Ingwë's home once the elf had rested. Ingwë nodded tightly and they both moved on to greet others.

XXX

Manwë sat across from him, elbows resting on his knees and fingers interlaced as the vala leant forward to contemplate the elf in front of him.

"That is fascinating. Do you wish for me to retrieve the missing memories?" Ingwë looked up at him, jaw slacking slightly.

"You can do that?" He asked, receiving a sardonic smile for an answer. "Yes, please I want to remember." The deity nodded.

"Come, you should rest in bed, we do not know how much time she has taken from your memory and you will appear catatonic while you relieve the memories."

Once Ingwë lay in his bed, dressed only in sleeping pants, Manwë took his hand. Almost the moment their hands touched, he gasped and fell unconscious onto the mattress.

XXX

Manwë looked up from his chair beside his friend's bed. Near the doorway stood a female he only vaguely recognised the aura of, dressed in a diaphanous navy blue gown in the style favoured by the angels, a tube of ankle length fabric simply pinned at the shoulders, though in this case the pins and matching belt were rather ornate. The lady in question looked rather pale and utterly indifferent to the effect her gown would have on just about any male. Manwë grinned slightly, the problem with clothes invented by an androgynous race was that they had no concept of physical attraction. Selene, if the lady was who he thought she was, was probably more aware than most when she wasn't worried off her head.

"You are showing him his missing memories?" She asked quietly. The vala smirked sardonically at the lady, he was almost certain that this was Selene. She closed her eyes with a certain look of resigned horror as his expression confirmed her fear.

"Why is that so bad?" He asked quietly. "Why did you take his memories?"

There was a prolonged pause as Selene stared at him measuringly.

"Because I took him to my world. I took him to my world where I could heal his hurt heart. I do not think he is ready for that, not for him to remember and work out for later, not to analyse. While he was there, resting and enjoying himself, he was not thinking or paying too much attention to the little things that were not something he can deal with. With the memory though, he will begin to notice these thing." Manwë went white. He hated to say it but she was probably right.

"Unfortunately, it is too late now. He will remember and all three of us will take the consequences." She nodded at the vala and moved to sit on the side of Ingwë's bed, and almost immediately began stroking the elf's hair.

Manwë smiled and wondered just how time she had done that before.

XXX

_Ingwë watched as Selene led him through some sort of magical doorway to a rolling estate with a semi-derelict castle on top of the nearest hill. As the lady led him toward the building he saw that the inhabited part was very well kept and that the ruins that surrounded the house were actually decorative in nature. Selene had smiled at him._

"_My little Folly, a decorative home for when I want somewhere quiet to rest." Ingwë smiled at her, trying hard not to notice the way the setting sun made her almost diaphanous gown very definitely not 'almost' diaphanous. She offered her hand to him and then led him among the decorative ruins to the entrance, a clearly ancient, oak double doorway._

_Once inside they found themselves in a hallway like none Ingwë had seen before. It was not impressive as such, more homey, but the interior design was like he never seen before. Absently he wondered how the floral pattern on the wall had been achieved, since it clearly had not been painted. As they went through the house, Selene pointed out what each of the doors they passed led to. Once they were upstairs, he was led to a large, spacious bedroom with oak furniture. The bedding was all white and made out of linen and a lace-like fabric._

_Selene helped him remove his armour, placing it on a stand before laying out a pair of linen sleeping pants and pointed him to one of the dressers which had a large in-built basin and a couple of large jugs, as well as some soap, a flannel and a towel hanging from the side._

"_For you to wash up before you sleep if you should so want. There are clean clothes in the dresser and I will have yours washed while you sleep. When you wake, come down to the kitchen." He nodded and watched her leave before preparing himself for rest._

_XXX_

_When he woke her realised the simple though large bed was one of the most comfortable he had ever slept in. Once he was slightly more awake, he noticed his clothes laying pressed and dried at the end of his bed. Absently he wondered how long he had been asleep that the clothes had not only been washed but dried and returned. He noted a note on them stating that if he went along to the bathroom then he would find himself a hot bath. After so long on the road he did not hesitate to go and take a good bath._

_Eventually getting down to the kitchen he was met with a range of wonderful smells. He entered to find Selene washing flour off her hands and stopped dead in shock. She looked behind her and grinned at him._

"_Yes, I do like cooking." She stated simply before preparing him a large plate of food and a drink._

_XXX_

_The next time they met, he did not sleep so long and so they went for a walk round her estate. Occasionally he would note strange things on the trees and such like, not to mention that he recognise very few of the birds' calls._

_As they walked, he watched Selene and observed her. She was no longer dressed in those simple diaphanous gowns but clothing that was more covering only in terms of transparency. There was far less fabric involved in the skirts and tops she wore, the skirts generally of a dark blue fabric he could not identify while the tops were in a range of different designs and fabrics._

_She had also lost the glow somewhere along the line and her hair had now settled into an almost golden shade of brown, like none he'd ever seen on an elf. If not for her extraordinary beauty he could have mistaken her for a human, since she did not have pointed ears._

_XXX_

_Many times he was taken to visit that house and estate that Selene referred to as 'her little folly'. As the last memory came to an end, Ingwë considered the things that he had seen, not comprehending why Selene would remove his memory of the peaceful estate._

_Slowly he began to examine the little bits, the things that he had not recognised and had dismissed at the time._

_He almost growled as consciousness intruded itself on his examination of his newly re-discovered memories. He didn't because he felt the very familiar feeling of a hand brushing through his hair, a hand he definitely recognised the feel of._

Blinking several times, the first thing Ingwë noticed was Manwë regarding him from the chair. The next was that, though the stroking had stopped, the hand had not yet left his head and he rolled over to sea Selene sitting on the edge of the bed, lip caught adorably between her lips. Just for once, he suspected that for once that expression was absolutely real. Selene, unlike the elleth he had met, seemed to have no concept of her own sexuality or the effect her beauty had on males.

Eventually, the staring match between the pair ended as the vala coughed lightly.

"I'll leave you two to talk it out shall I?"

Both of them nodded, not really paying attention to the swiftly leaving Vala.

The two of them sat watching each other, well laying in Ingwë's case until he actually he realised his position and pushed himself into a sitting position. To his surprise he saw Selene eye his chest with an appreciative gleam in her eye. Slightly pleased at the reaction, he grinned at her.

"So you are not totally immune to what separate genders were made for?" He asked and had the great pleasure of seeing her go pink.

"Why do you think I originally came to see you?" He raised an eyebrow at that. "I am immortal, thanks to a gift from Papa, though I am not truly an angel, just one who has many of their more useful gifts. My world does not have elves at all, just humans so no immortals. Papa passed on the praise Manwë had given you when they last met and I got curious to see the first male I had heard of that was immortal. I then went and watched you asleep, actually I didn't intend to come at night specifically, though I was careful to be invisible since I didn't want to be seen. When I saw you I couldn't resist running my fingers through your hair. Do you know how many girls would kill for hair like that?"

Ingwë had to laugh at the question. Selene's lips quirked before she carried on.

"Despite not actually once talking to you I watched you a lot and I grew fond of you, hence the gifts of protection before you went to war. When I sensed you were injured, I was somewhere between furious and terrified for you." She had close her eyes as her hand rose to cover the spot that had held the wound. Her thumb caressed the area gently before her hand dropped and she carried on. "After that final battle had finished I could feel your pain, the emotions you were feeling. One of the 'gifts' Papa gave me was empathy, particularly towards those I care about. I needed to heal your heart, I felt your pain as my own, so I took you to my little sanctuary. Then it occurred to me that while you did not comment in the moment, you would notice the things about my world that are different and begin to question them. You are not ready for some of the bigger differences of my world and though the individual things I showed you do not seem much, you would have soon got on to the bigger and more dangerous things. I kept you extremely sheltered within my refuge but I feared for your reaction to many of the things I kept hidden from you." She looked up through her eyelashes at him, still biting her lip.

Ingwë regarded her silently, trying to process what she had said.

"Please give me an example, try to make me understand." He asked quietly after a moment.

"Do you remember the stove I used to cook for you?" Ingwë searched around in his mind for such an insignificant thing. As he considered the stove he nodded at Selene before paling in understanding. Thinking on it he realised that there were flames but not visible source of fuel and she had adjusted the size of the flame with the help of a circular thing on the side of the cooker.

"Explain to me how it works, explain everything." He whispered, determined to get everything out of the beautiful young lady. She nodded at him grimly and started to explain.

XXX

For how long they talked, Ingwë did not know. As they discussed each thing he had noticed was out of place, for lack of a better phrase, he considered more things and noticed more things. In many ways, her world seemed very different from her own yet, with her detailed explanations (she sometimes used her magic to explain where mere words could not), he began to see that actually her world worked the same way his did but the humans had harnessed the very nature of the world to make more things happen, and to happen differently, making their life easier.

Ingwë was pretty sure that food had been brought in to them at some point, probably more than once but he didn't really remember it, eating on automaton as Selene explained. Eventually he asked a question not related to her world but to Selene herself.

"When you were in your world, you looked like an exceptionally beautiful human, one beyond the beauties of any human but still, well, for lack of a better word, normal colouring. On the other hand, when you are here, your colouring is all in shades of blue which is not a natural colouring for a person except in terms of eye colour. I was wondering after the reason for that." She smiled.

"You are good at asking questions with long winded explanations, you know that?" She asked him with good humour. Ingwë grinned back. She sighed softly, leaning back and adjusting her position to a more comfortable one.

"It is a little complicated and comes with the requirement to explain a bit more about my personal life." She sighed again, staring off into the distance. "I was, originally, human, though as you can tell that is not really an apposite description of me any more. I am a species of my own really, I suppose. When I was very young, my parents named Papa, that is to say the Archangel Michael, as my godfather (that is something I will explain later). I was not much older when both parents died. Normally, by the rules where I come from, I would have ended up in an orphanage, an institution that looks after children without parents to care for them. It is better that not having anywhere for the children to grow up but it is hardly the family environment that allows a child to thrive and grow properly. They do their best but there is only so much they can do. Papa decided instead to take me in and look after me, considering his position as my godfather to mean that it was his responsibility to ensure my upbringing."

Ingwë nodded, that seemed reasonable to him.

"This is where it gets a little complicated, starting with the simple fact that Papa is an eternal, androgynous being with absolutely no idea what parenting skills are. He can command troops with best of them, command respect an adoration from anyone he meets. He is, for all intents and purposes the ultimate warrior, it is why he chooses an at least mostly male form, but he has absolutely no idea how to bring up one little girl. He also has no sense of the impossible, or the concept of people, a person he knows personally being finite and changing. He looks at humanity from the view of an outside, superior being that will never understand them. He looked at me as something that, without consciously considering it most of the time, could be changed to his view of how people should be rather than something to help him understand humanity. He knew I had to grow up, become an adult, but he did not think I should get old and wither like a human. That would mean I wouldn't be able to do things, would eventually be gone, be finite. So I didn't. I got to the physical age of around 20 and stayed there. This applied to all sorts of areas of my life. If I couldn't do something, he gave me the power to do it. Papa is very nearly all powerful and really doesn't understand the concept of limits. I once, when I was little, was upset I did not look like the angels I was living with so he made it so I had an angelic form I could take to look like them. That is the glowy blue form you see. Technically, angels are more glowy white and without any gender specific features, but Papa wanted to mark me out as slightly different, more important, _his_ daughter and since blue was my favourite colour, made the glow blue rather than white. Even he couldn't change the gender specific bit since, deep to the core of my soul, I am female and even Papa cannot change that. Not that any angel notices gender anyway. There is a similar story behind my ability to heal, an injury made me unhappy so he gave me the power to heal anything so no injury would ever make me unhappy again. That is the way Papa thinks about everything. If something made me unhappy, or didn't suit his view of how the world should be, he just uses magic to make it right. There is no concept of impossible."

Ingwë watched her in slight awe. The concept, while being incredibly simple, was mind boggling. It was amazing she hadn't grown up to be a brat when she had, most of her life, had someone sort the problem with no hardship whatsoever. She smiled unsurely at him. He smiled back and reached arms out to her. She flung herself into his arms and buried her head in his neck. He gently ran a hand through his hair.

"You are not human because your Papa simply changed the bits about you that make you human that didn't suit him?" She nodded. Suddenly a thought occurred to him and a hand slipped down to rest on her lower abdomen. She blushed as his eyes widened as he considered the problem.

"I am still, well, fertile." She blushed deeply. "When I first discovered that problem, he adjusted rather than simply removed that. He is not simplistic just has very little stopping him from doing whatever he wants. He knows that removing that part of my body would negatively affect me so he adjusted it so that it would only work and do, well, what it does, when I want to have children."

"Like elves then?"

"I have no idea how elves fertility works, so I'll take your word on that." He smiled. The two of them sat in silence as he held her to him. Eventually, after a long time enjoying her presence, he decided to ask another question.

"What would your Papa's response to you getting married be?" She pulled a face as she considered that.

"I have no idea, a part of me thinks that he probably has no idea of the concept, he does not understand sexuality at all. On the other hand, he has probably gone to look at how humans do things in an attempt to understand how to be a father and has heard that father's are supposed to get angry and protective about their daughters getting married. Considering who Papa is, that second response could be really rather scary." Ingwë winced.

"And he wouldn't have the concept that a certain level of moderation is generally exercised, would he?" She laughed cynically.

"You are talking about an elemental being that pre-dates the invention of procreation and therefore gender whose understanding of fatherhood is completely unistinctual and based round a few vague concepts. Generally he is quite moderate when he thinks about it but his view of the world is totally different to the point of being unintelligible to us. I honestly have no idea how he would react or whether moderation would be shown." Ingwë smiled and pulled her closer to him and kissed her cheek, eliciting a blush.

"Can you change into your human form in Valinor?" Instead of answering, her form shimmered and her colouring changed, the glow vanishing as she regained the more normal colouring. The high king carded through her hair gently. "You are beautiful, you know that?"

She smiled and buried her head in his chest.

"So are you my king." Ingwë smiled and kissed her very gently, revelling in the softness of her lips.

XXX

It was the first court he'd held since the War of Wrath. Before him stood all of his court but at the front was a delegation of a number of his Lords and Ladies, many of whom were involved in the running of the government, many of whom had lost children in the war.

"We welcome your safe return my Lord, however we wish to bring up something that has come to our attention in your absence." The elf looked to his compatriots unsurely. He then took a deep breath and forged on. "You need an heir my lord. Until the war we had not understood the problems of your absence from rule. With the promise you would return we managed to work well enough but much was on hold without your presence."

"Previously we have written death and the thought of potentially losing you as not possible, or denied it but we now have to admit that the elfin peoples require surety that in the event of such a happening as to Finwë. In short we are asking that you begin actively looking for a mate, for we cannot deny that you need an heir." The elf and his compatriots looked unsure at the bravery of telling their king to get on and get married and were more worried by the soft, amused smile playing about his mouth. After a moment of silence, making the elves (he admitted, deliberately) nervous, he responded to their concerns.

"You will then be pleased to know that I am in the process of courting a lady to be my wife. I have in fact put in a formal request to her father for betrothal." Well, not having a clue how to contact her father, he had actually asked Manwë to do so for him but that was neither here nor there.

The entire court looked pole axed, though as they began getting over the shock, he saw several unmarried elleth look rather jealous. Obviously they had hoped to be the next high queen. An elleth amongst the delegation asking him to marry hesitantly broke the shocked silence.

"May we ask who is the lucky lady?"

"Me."

Everyone turned at the single word that echoed through the room with, despite being a very short word, the sounds of the most beautiful piece of music ever written.

Selene stood there, framed in the light of the great double doors which led into his throne room. She was in her angelic form, glowing with a soft blue light. The one difference from how Ingwë normally saw her in that form was her manner of dress. Gone was the diaphanous, simple gown that gave the high king a _very_ nice view. In its place was a gown of deep blue brocaded silk, trimmed with white, silver and gold. The tapered sleeves were folded back to show a lining of cloth of gold and an under dress of white silk shot with gold, woven in a complicated floral pattern.

The cloth of gold lining was studded with pearls and opals. It matched the large band of embroidery round the neckline, also of cloth of gold. The neckline was a wide boat neck rather than the necklines usually accustomed to the eldar, also exposing the expensive white silk of her under dress. The bejewelled and embroidered band of decoration was not sewn of flat as he was accustomed to but deliberately ruffled to be almost like gold foam on the water and dipped at the front, enhancing her cleavage. The dress hugged her figure and flowed down to pool on the floor and float back in a royal train which was as heavily embroidered and bejewelled as the rest of the décor. Finishing the incredibly rich gown was a belt woven of the white silk of her underdress and the cloth of gold, with the mixture of jewels on the rest of the dress in particular abundance on the belt which showed off her narrow waist before dropping near to the ground.

Her hair was dressed relatively simply. The two forelock were each braided with gems matching those on her dress. A simple circlet of gold and silver wire roped together with a deep blue diamond at the front was the only other adornment.

The entire court stared at the incredibly richly dressed lady who had suddenly appeared in their midst, glowing with the power of the Ainur. Their High King, no longer the centre of their attention, grinned and rose to greet his beloved.

"Selene." With that one word he swept her into his arms and kissed her deeply. The two were lost to the rest of the world. Eventually they separated and Selene leant in to whisper in his ear.

"Papa has agreed to negotiate with Manwë our betrothal. I decided to come here with the good news whilest they are doing so. Very soon we shall be married." Ingwë grinned and kissed her again before swinging her round in joy. Selene giggled and relaxed into her beloved's arms. After several minutes the parted again and Ingwë placed her hand on his arm in the traditional position of a wife and lead her to the dais at the front of the room where the two turned to face the avidly watching court.

"My people, if I may introduce my beloved. This is the Lady Selene of the Ainur, Daughter of Michael, most Ancient of the Ainur and Lord Manwë's equivalent in the world I believe is known as Terra." The intake of breath was audible. At the side of the dais Indis, Ingwë's sister, smiled. Trust her brother to get the one lady in all the worlds of Eru's creation who superseded Elu Thingol's mate in rank. "I have also to announce that our betrothal has been accepted by Selene's father and is now being negotiated between him and the Elder King."

There was silence.

Then, one by one, people began to clap and then there were shouts of joy. Then from somewhere there was the sound of bells and the news was passed out to those in the street and soon all of the Elven peoples were celebrating for their High King and his mate.

XXX

The wedding was stupendous.

The happy couple noticed nothing of course, not the vastly increased range of higher beings due to the full contingent of Archangels and Angels also attending to see the closest thing they had to a princess marry the High King of the Elven people, the fairest race of Eru's creation.

The only memory Selene had of anyone but her new husband was the look of total love on her father's face as Michael kissed her brow in benediction.

"Be happy child with this love you have found. I will still always be there for you." He paused for a moment and his face shone with the light of The One. "You two had better provide me with many grandchildren."

Selene laughed and her mate blushed before the two took their leave of their guests.

XXX

Ingwë woke to the feel of a gentle hand brushing his hair, smiling gently in joy. He would have reacted more had he been more awake but in his half asleep state he just enjoyed the caress. After a while he opened his half lidded eyes which had slid shut from pleasure at the hand on his hair. His wife smiled at him from her side of the bed.

After a moment or maybe more, he ran a hand down her side, resting on the swollen bump of her stomach.

"I love you, my gift of Eru." He whispered, revelling in the soft returned reply.

Fin


End file.
